


To Heal

by inkandchocolate



Category: Buffy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-24
Updated: 2010-05-24
Packaged: 2017-10-09 17:00:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandchocolate/pseuds/inkandchocolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A healing process for them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Heal

**Author's Note:**

> Improv #12: tender - flame - ache - boot  
> Author's Notes: For ethrosdemon. Because she said so. And Katie. Because she was there.

Anya at work, Tara at class and no one questions that Xander took another day off. Foreman likes him, he's a good kid and he hasn't missed a single day on any of the jobs before now, no matter what the assignment is. Willow's puffy eyes are her excuse for staying under the covers when Tara kisses her forehead and says goodbye.

Willow uses her key and crawls into the bed with him. He's awake but pretends not to be so she can press soft kisses on his eyes. Her hair tickles his face and she smells like incense and raspberries. He remembers the way she used to smell before, like cinnamon and Love's Baby Soft.

Things change.

Kisses her mouth, Willowtaste in the morning, and his chest aches. No words for this, what it is that drives them together. It's about filling in something hollow. Not just the way that there's no more dinner with Joyce, no more plates of cookies when they research at the dining room table. Something got in and hurt them all with one single blow.

Core group, him and Wills and Buffy. Others come and go but it was always them. No matter how tight the bonds or tender the threads, everyone else is outside of what they have. Just them together. Boyfriends and girlfriends and lovers. Teachers and monsters and the plural of apocalypse. As long as these three remain, all is right in the world somehow.

But he is wrong. It's not all right in the world now. There's still Buffy and Wills, and there's still him, but nothing is right anymore. Because he realizes now, it's never just them. They are his touchstones, his worry beads. The foundation of his world is bigger than the soft rounded shoulders he thought carried it alone. And now it's missing a piece, a keystone has crumbled and they all feel the aftershocks as it struggles to rebalance and gain its equilibrium.

Willow in his arms, and somehow this makes it all shift to someplace stable. Soft lips, and softer sighs as he touches her with hands that are sure and unsure. Small breasts, pale pink nipples and he can count her ribs as he kisses his way to her belly. Dip of her navel, and the merest hint of roundness, which he loves. Under his fingers are flame colored curls never bleached by sunlight and white thighs that open wide for him.

She won't let him kiss her there, and he almost understands that. But she lets him slip himself inside of her, and rolls him to the side. Arms and legs tangled in a net of comfort and he moves. Slowly. Inside. Her eyes are wide and her face is solemn, and they never look away at all. As if one will disappear the minute the other blinks, despite that fact that they are wound up in embraces and sharing skin.

She sighs out his name. There's no rhythm to it, and nothing else is said. Affirmation of existence perhaps, in those two breathy syllables. "Xander." He will kiss her forehead and roll his hips, and let her rock against him at the leisurely pace that lets them stay this way for long drawn out minutes. Her hands stroke his hair, brush it back from his face, tuck it behind his ear. Cup his cheek. She runs a finger over his eyebrows, traces his lips, barely touches his eyelashes with the trembling tip.

His hand is on her hip, fingers brushing the swell of her lower back. Holding her there, but not pressing, not pushing. Silky skin under the calluses on his palms. The other arm under her neck, pillowing her head on his bicep. He tries not to move it much, but will sometimes skim his fingers down her back, between her shoulder blades until she shudders and her nipples harden again against his chest.

Even when they cannot stay that way for any longer, usually because he can't, he just can't take the way it feels to be wrapped up in Willow and the way she's all heat and wetness around him, their movements are slow. Voices are hushed, she will say his name again, and sometimes he will cry out. No words, just the sounds of Xander's release. He stays inside of her until she is done, and he thinks she always comes after him because she needs to see him go first. See him bliss out, even if it's just the physical level and not the one they both get from other people, other lovers. It's part of Willow's comfort and who is he to question it?

Afterwards, when they are dressed and she leaves, he'll gather strands of her hair from the pillow and make the bed. Put on his jacket and work boots and take a walk over to see Dawn and Buffy, bring them something and make sure they are finding their own way to heal.

=end=


End file.
